Tehran Says It Is Still Awaiting Washington's Answer on Hormuz Deal

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said his government is still waiting for an official answer from the United States regarding an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days, setting up a striking public contradiction with the position taken in Washington hours earlier.

The Iranian position was laid out shortly after President Donald Trump said he had rejected the plan to restore traffic through the waterway. Taken at face value, the two statements appear incompatible: one government says a proposal is on the table awaiting a reply, while the other says the offer has already been turned down. Tehran's insistence on receiving a formal response suggests the two sides are not yet speaking about the same set of terms, or at least do not share a common account of what was offered.

Iran's proposal, as described in Al Jazeera's report, is a short timetable — seven days — for the strait to be reopened. The compressed window is itself a signal, suggesting that Tehran views the measure as urgent and reversible, and that it is prepared to move quickly if the political conditions are met. The involvement of third-party mediators, whom Araghchi referenced while speaking, indicates Tehran is not treating the matter as a strictly bilateral exchange with Washington.

The Strait of Hormuz has long been treated as one of the world's most consequential maritime chokepoints, a narrow passage through which a substantial share of global energy supplies moves. Any period of disruption to shipping there tends to be felt well beyond the region, affecting insurance costs, freight rates and fuel prices in markets that have little direct involvement in the underlying political dispute. That reach helps explain why a reopening schedule measured in days, rather than weeks, would be considered at all.

The mediators' role is central to the disagreement over what happens next. Araghchi's remarks suggest Iran expects an answer to come through indirect channels and to be confirmed as an official US position, rather than inferred from political statements made in Washington. A rejection delivered publicly, without a formal diplomatic response exchanged, would leave Tehran in the position of waiting indefinitely for a document that may never arrive, while Washington has already moved on.

The immediate backdrop is a wider escalation. Related Al Jazeera coverage from the same period describes a regional environment in which Iran is engaged in conflict with the United States and Israel, and in which Saudi Arabia's foreign minister has accused Iran of "flagrant attacks" while also condemning the Houthi movement at the United Nations General Assembly. The rhetoric from Gulf capitals suggests that any partial de-escalation on the waterway would arrive amid deep mistrust on several fronts at once.

Iranian domestic messaging has hardened in parallel. In a separate report, President Pezeshkian said Iran "no longer trusts talks with Washington," a remark that sits uneasily with a government that is nonetheless waiting for a US response on the future of the strait. Analysts who follow the file note that such positions are not necessarily contradictory: a state can reject the credibility of negotiations while still keeping a channel open for tactical, time-limited arrangements.

There is also a question of authority and coordination. Al Jazeera's related coverage in this series examines who is currently exercising power in Iran, including reporting on a council of officials temporarily in charge, and has assessed the extent to which the country's regional alliances have been reshaped. That kind of uncertainty can complicate a negotiating position, because mediators need a counterpart empowered to deliver on any commitment within a seven-day framework.

Washington's own explanation for rejecting the plan has not been set out in detail in the report. Analysts caution against reading Trump's comments as necessarily closing the file. Rejections announced in public often serve a domestic or coalition audience, and governments in this situation frequently keep testing terms through intermediaries after declaring them unacceptable. What is clear is that the two public narratives are now misaligned, and that misalignment itself has become a source of risk.

For shipping and energy markets, the seven-day offer introduces a near-term deadline. If the strait reopens under an agreed schedule, insurers and carriers would move quickly to normalise transit, and the premium attached to Gulf-origin voyages could begin to fall. If no response arrives and the window closes, Tehran would face a choice between letting the proposal lapse and demonstrating that its threats are not rhetorical.

Diplomats are likely to focus on the mechanism rather than the substance in the coming days. The question of whether the United States issues a formal, written answer — even a negative one — could matter as much as the answer's content, because it determines whether the mediation track remains usable. A deliberate refusal to respond formally would leave Araghchi's stated position unresolved and hand the initiative back to Tehran.

For now, the dispute is frozen in a single unresolved question: whether Washington's rejection amounts to a final verdict on Iran's seven-day proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, or whether, as Tehran maintains, the matter is still formally pending. The answer, when it comes, will be read not only as a signal about the waterway, but about whether any channel between Tehran and Washington remains open at all.